Rapid Fire at the Club

First game of RapidFire we have had at the club for a number of years. Chris and I decided to get the forces out for a scenario from the Normandy Battlegames book with the 6th Airborne Division against elements of 21 Panzer Division.

We used the RapidFire Reloaded rules and were both very new to them. The Germans got hammered by all of the indirect fire and didn’t really threaten the British

Heavy metal (at least for 6th Airborne)

The forces of evil.  The gun didn’t last long.

Table from the German end as we were setting up

Pretty good turnout and a wide variety of games

Normandy Navy

I have continued to experiment with the 3d printer over the past few months.  

Test prints of the various Landing Craft needed

I recently started planning to put on a set of large games around the Normandy Landings for June 2024.  I have a large number of the wonderful Leva (and more recently LegionsIVHire) bunkers and defensive positions.  But as I am doing this in 1/300 scale I have the opportunity to have a large number of landing craft of various types so that the seascape truly looks like "wall to wall ships" as various German reports stated on the morning.

So I have acquired various STL files for these craft and have been resizing and doing test prints.  This will allow me to realise a long held dream - many of these variants are not commercialy available in resin or lead.  As well the cost of those that are available range from 5-15 pounds.  So to put a lot of them on the table would have involved a significiant investment.  

At the moment they are simply undercoated.  I have some more work to do to tune the file and printer to get rid of some of the step marks - but otherwise I am delighted.   

LCT Mk3 and Gun and Flak versions

Plain LCT Mk4 and Gun, Flak and Rocket versions

LCT Mk5

LCI(L) - Landing Craft Infantry (Large)

LCI(S) - Landing Craft Infantry (Small)

A (small) 3d test printed of a gun for the Flak versions

A Mulberry Harbour

I'm sure many of you know how it works ... you go onto a website looking for something particular and then get sidetracked and follow a few more links / threads and end up not where you intended but close to a "Checkout" button.

Well that what led to the purchase I'm showing below.  I went onto Shapeways to look for a 6mm Freya Radar for my Normandy Germans.  Then saw a reference to a Mulberry harbour component which ended up with these landing on my doorstep.

Beach ramp and bridges

Bridges and Beetles

Pierhead

LST Pierhead

In need of a beach and water board

Realising that it would not be too often that I would use the Harbour setup, I saw something else that I thought may have been more useful - Rhino ferries.  So click and a few of them were on their way.

Rhino tugs and barge

Small Rhino ferries

No comments on the prices if you follow this link :)

All of these come from https://www.shapeways.com/shops/miniandbeyond?section=1%2F300+WW2&s=0